This invention relates to an apparatus for encrusting a filling material. Particularly, it relates to an apparatus that includes a screw apparatus that transfers a filling material to be encrusted by a crust, and a vane pump that supplies the filling material, which is transferred by the screw apparatus, to a nozzle for combining the filling material and a crust. The apparatus also includes another screw apparatus, which transfers encrusting material to encrust a filing material, and another vane pump, which supplies the encrusting material, which is transferred by the screw apparatus, to the nozzle for combining the filling material and the encrusting material. More particularly, it relates to an apparatus that can prevent the filling and encrusting materials from being kneaded when they are transferred from the screw apparatuses to the vane pumps. Also, the apparatus can supply sufficient filling and encrusting materials to the related vane pumps to fill the spaces between the pairs of the opposed vanes of the vane pumps with sufficient amounts of those materials.
Conventional filling apparatuses have a screw-transferring apparatus to transfer a filling material that is supplied from a hopper for filling materials. They also have another screw-transferring apparatus to transfer an encrusting material that is supplied from another hopper for encrusting materials. Also, those filling apparatuses have vane pumps to measure the volumes of the filling and encrusting materials that are transferred from the screw apparatuses and then to transfer them to a combining nozzle.
The filling apparatuses discussed above include various kinds of apparatuses in which the rotating shafts of the screw-transferring apparatuses and the vane pumps are positioned parallel to or aligned with each other. Also, the filling apparatuses include a kind of apparatus that has a screw-transferring apparatus having a pair of screws.
For the apparatuses in which the rotating shafts of the screw-transferring apparatuses and the vane pumps are positioned in parallel, those shafts are shifted up and down and positioned horizontally and in parallel. For the apparatuses in which the shafts of the screw-transferring apparatuses and the vane pumps are aligned with each other, those shafts are not shifted up and down, but the direction of the flow of a material is changed before the material is transferred to the vane pump.
Those conventional filling apparatuses have a limitation when they are made smaller. Also, the apparatuses in which the direction of the flow of a material is changed have a problem wherein they are intended to knead the material. Also, the conventional filling apparatuses sometimes cannot fill the spaces between a plurality of pairs of vanes of the vane pumps with sufficient food materials. There remain disadvantages to be overcome so as to continuously feed a uniform amount of a food material to a combining nozzle, because there are many cases where the spaces between pairs of vanes that are located in a vane pump cannot be filled with a food material.
This invention is to overcome the above-mentioned problems by the prior-art apparatuses. The object of this invention is to provide an apparatus for encrusting a filling material. It includes a screw-transferring apparatus for filling materials to transfer a filling material supplied by a hopper for filling materials, a vane pump for filling materials to transfer a filling material that is fed by the screw-transferring apparatus to a combining nozzle, a screw-transferring apparatus for crusts to transfer a crust that is supplied by a hopper for crusts, and a vane pump for crusts to transfer a crust that is fed by the screw-transferring apparatus for crusts to said combining nozzle. The combining nozzle combines the crust that is supplied by the vane pump for crusts with the filling material that is supplied by the vane pump for filling materials. The crust surrounds the filling material. This apparatus is characterized in that each screw-transferring apparatus includes horizontal screws, in that each vane pump has a vertical rotating shaft, and in that the end of each screw is not held and is located near the inlet of each vane pump.
At the inlet of each vane pump a guide plane may be formed. The plane is arranged along a line that is tangent to a trajectory of the outer edge of each rotating vane of the vane pump and forms a circle having the biggest diameter among all of the trajectories defined by the outer edges of the vanes.
Each screw-transferring apparatus may have a pair of screws. The rotational axis of each vane pump is deflected toward the combining nozzle from a position in the middle between the pair of screws. Also, the screws, the vane pumps, and the combining nozzle are positioned at substantially the same level, so that food materials are horizontally transferred from the screws to the combining nozzle.